


Distractions

by Dawn_leaps_about



Category: The Wandering Inn - pirateaba
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fever Dreams, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Injury, Mild Language, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29030424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawn_leaps_about/pseuds/Dawn_leaps_about
Summary: Niers somehow ends up in the mountains of Izril, alone. Spoilers through Vol. 7.[High Passes rescue AU]
Relationships: Niers Astoragon/Erin Solstice
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. Water and Air

Niers Astoragon opened his eyes to the chill morning air of the High Passes, but it would stretch the truth to say that he woke. His lips felt like paper, his mouth like sand, and he reminded himself, yet again, that he should find more water, first thing.

As soon as he could.

When Niers woke again, the sun had moved past midday, and he honestly woke this time, no exaggeration. His throat ached and he wondered at his own stupidity that he would get water but not drink it. Then he remembered, yet again, that he should find more water, first thing, as soon as he could.

Most pressing, though, was the sound that woke him. All sounds were pressing, in the High Passes, and deep sleepers found little quarter.

A large rock, too sunken to roll and crush him, lay at his back, soft moss beneath. A few leaves of some plant covered all but his face, but the leaves wouldn’t cover the smell of blood from the various injuries spread over his tiny body. With luck he could avoid creatures that hunted by scent for as long as possible, and he had survived this long only by luck anyway, he had no doubt.

_Ha!_ Lucky. Imagine. Him, of all people.

A rush of adrenaline chased away his fatigue - some of it - and, prepared to run, he strained to hear again whatever had woken him.

Also, he silently begged that he wouldn't need to run.

Everything hurt. Swallowing hurt. _Breathing_ hurt. Running? That might be a problem, but at least he had mud to hide in, should he need it, rather than snow. His head swam in agony. His vision blurred, and bruises peppered the little of his skin not already painted in dried blood. For the most part not his own blood, thankfully, but underneath his armor he could feel a few soggy patches renew themselves every day or so.

Niers waited for a gentle gust of wind and adjusted the leaves, hoping the whistling would disguise any rustle he made from carelessness or, more likely, ineptitude. Of course, because he was just _supremely_ lucky, the same whistling carried a sound he’d both longed for and dreaded: voices.

A red-haired woman walked around the boulders to his right, scanning the area that had provided him some small protection from the elements. As far as he could remember, the team of Adventurers who’d tried to kill him hadn't employed a woman like her. That meant nothing, of course. Other teams could be hunting him, too. Either way, he couldn't break cover without more information.

The elegant-looking woman turned to yell behind her.

"Air in. There's snow one ear."

What? What about 'air'? He couldn't get a clear sight of her face from under his smattering of moss and leaves.

"Weight!"

A different woman's voice joined the first. She walked not from behind the boulder so much as out of it, past the first woman and closer to him, though not by much.

If one of his soldiers had set up camp so close to an unidentified magical device, would he have the grace to forgive them? Probably not.

A soft thundering of footsteps, and a Gnoll much shorter than either woman, still a giant to him, rushed from the boulder-doorway towards the second Adventurer and quietly displayed something in her paws. Thankfully, the footsteps stilled no closer to his hiding place.

"Mrsha, kid pack ear!" One of the women hollered; he thought it must be the first, but she didn't sound afraid. At her sharp tone, a third adult figure moved some distance to his left. All three seemed unconcerned.

_Shit._

Niers hadn't noticed them whatsoever. _Big feet squash it all!_ The new figure towered over the Gnoll.

Surely, they wouldn't bring a _child_ into the High Passes? Unless they might live here, impossible though it seemed. Not only that, but the group's conversation made it plain that they'd ciphered their communication. This was a _smart_ team.

He wondered, in passing, if the move meant one of their members had levels as a [Strategist]. He knew better than to assume, but he swelled a bit with pride at the thought. It was the sort of thing he would have done. His breath caught and his head felt light when he realized, without question, that they couldn't be affiliated with the Cherinion Swords. His mind raced. He hadn't known the taste of hope for days.

"Air in. Let's go," the first Adventurer said.

Were they casting a spell? Neither woman seemed to be looking for a Fraerling, at least. Another good sign. They might be his only chance of escaping the Passes.

"Another summon near." The shorter woman spoke again.

Where was the [Summoner]? The newest figure carried a sword, and none wore mage's robes, but then again they were obviously nontraditional.

At her words a fourth tall figure approached from behind the first three, and Niers might have fallen over if he hadn’t been on the ground already. An Antinium!

The third and fourth Adventurers turned away from the shorter woman. She stood frowning, hands on her hips, and the [Warrior], or so Niers assumed from the sword, scanned the distance. The taller woman, closest to the doorway, beckoned the others her direction. Niers brushed aside one of his leaves.

He tried to shout, he really did, but a croak was all that he managed. The Gnoll child’s ears snapped up. She jumped at the adults and made some motions with her paws, then pointed at his boulder.

Signing? Another stroke of brilliance. He tried to clear his throat and tell them so.

The shorter woman pushed the Gnoll back, and the tallest two Adventurers moved in front of both women.

"I'm day [King] Mrsha hen's eyed!" The first Adventurer grabbed the Gnoll and disappeared.

"It good beet wrap."

A Hobgoblin! Had Foliana told him why she’d been eating beets? Niers briefly considered that he might be seeing things, discarded the absurd notion, and looked around for others, but the [Warrior] seemed to be the only one of his kind. Something about a team with a Goblin that he should remember. If only he tried harder, maybe? He _knew_ he should know this one. _Focus._ The words tried to coalesce in his mind, but completing the thought was like chasing smoke. He sighed. He'd think of it later.

“Where are they?” The young woman shook her head then looked to her companions, and the Antinium nocked an arrow. Something about an Antinium [Archer] tickled his memory, too. "Eye thin kit safer end." She spoke with a soft kindness, voice wavering between curiosity and worry.

Swallowing again, Niers’ yell came out as a hoarse whisper this time.

“Please! I need a potion!”

The woman turned, and her eyes found him, or rather his bundle of leaves, immediately. She looked so familiar. Was she famous? Was this a _Named-rank_ team?

The woman took a step in his direction, but the Hobgoblin blocked her with an arm and a warning.

"Thin kaput weed own know, [Air In].”

She looked away from Niers for a moment, pointed in a perpendicular direction, and shouted,

“I heard something! Keep card!”

The [Archer] swept his bow to follow her finger and angled his head skyward, then back to ground level, swinging his head. The Hobgoblin repositioned himself and she, no longer blocked, jogged the last few steps to Niers.

This close, Niers got his first good look at who must be their team captain. The young woman seemed to have no adventuring gear at all! If she was their [Tactician], well, smart decision on their part, but foolish of them to leave her unprotected. Idiots!

Niers coughed and tried to swallow, and darkness crept in his vision when he raised his head. The woman, jaw hanging open, picked away some of his leaves.

“Air ink kiddo farrier please.” The Antinium's voice was masculine.

“Hone own own own own, not could! Not could, not could, not could not could!” She yelled from behind one hand.

“Air ink it pack!” the Antinium yelled back towards her. He drew his arrow and aimed vaguely at Niers. Not directly at him, but close enough to make a point.

“Stupid overprotective [Archer]! Get your team some armor, if you're so worried!”

Niers threw a handful of dirt in the Antinium’s direction; it fluttered harmlessly in the wind before settling a short distance away. It hadn't even reached the shoes of the woman, who was much closer.

“Kid him up ocean!”

Niers looked around for the Gnoll but didn't see her. Every movement felt like he was underwater, and if only he weren't so tired, he knew he could unravel their system with a bit of effort. He was sure, one hundred percent sure, that he almost understood them. If he couldn't crack their code, that meant it was _good_. He should give this team an artifact.

His head hurt trying to make sense of their speech. His eyes fell shut.

“[Air In]!”

Niers opened his eyes and looked intently at the [Tactician]. [Strategist], whatever. She clearly made decisions and her team clearly listened. He tried to sit.

“Listen to me. I need to send a [Message].”

She paid no attention. “Don't move!”

She knelt over him with a vial in hand, and the Hobgoblin now stood at her side. Niers looked back at her.

“This is important! I need a Mage's Guild! Or the Adventurer's Guild. Do you understand me?”

“Stop moving! We are you!” She plucked bits of moss away from his sticky armor and then went to open the vial, but the [Warrior] stopped her.

“[Air In], Lism.”

Niers wracked his brain at the name. Lism, Lism… Dead gods! The Liscorian [Councilmember]?

“You know Liscor?”

“Able leafy ease sill.” The [Archer] had eased his bowstring and now stood closer. His head swept around them and occasionally up.

The woman gave a small gasp and, still not heeding his demands, looked at Niers, expressionless. She glanced at the vial in her hands and returned it to one of her teammates.

“Listen, dammit! There's a traitor in my Company. I need to save them!”

“I think you forgot bicker problems, buddy.” The woman prodded at his side, poking a finger under his arms.

"'Bigger problems,' I understood that one, you know. Ha. Ha _ha._ ” Niers rolled his eyes as hard as he could. “I've never heard that one before. Ever!"

“Bird, we needle in net. Ankle in water.”

“Yes. [Air In].” The Antinium departed in the direction the first woman had gone. The [Warrior] shifted on his feet as if about to engage a great foe. The leader must have given her team some directive. She returned her gaze to Niers. Why wouldn't she just _listen?_

“I don't need more air! They're in danger! Get me to Liscor!”

Niers tried to swat her fingers away, pushed at her thumbs in anger. Even if he hadn't been in a weakened state, he'd be a poor match for her strength, no matter that her movements were achingly gentle. He would’ve had to threaten violence, if he were in any position to get out of the High Passes alone, but, he reasoned, she truly _was_ being tender, which he appreciated. Obviously, stabbing her seemed incredibly impolite, and on top of that, he did need their help. No, it just wouldn't do.

His head spun when the woman raised him to chest-height, and his vision went out for a moment. She held him in frigid bare hands, though she and her team had otherwise dressed for cold weather.

“Ease could've eve her.”

“Nope ocean. No my chick!”

“Stop speaking in code! Look at me.” How far was the city? She peered at him, brows drawn together, and he tried one more time through chattering teeth. “Are. We. Close?”

“East hilarious,” the Hobgoblin threw in.

A cool breeze sent Niers shivering, and he looked around for one of his leaves, but they were gone. Despairing, he lay flat in the hollow of her palms, blinking against the wind.

“Chin heave akin help us. We neater.”

“Tell me what's going on!” Niers struggled to keep his eyes open, and a thin cloth surrounded him, doing little to keep him warm. The last thing he could understand, as only his luck would have it, he heard crystal clear.

  


“Numbtongue, get the door.”

  
  


The world went dark.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Air in. There's snow one ear." (Erin, there's no one here.)
> 
> "Weight!" (Wait!)
> 
> "Mrsha, kid pack ear!" (Mrsha, get back here!)
> 
> "Air in. Let's go," (Erin, let's go.)
> 
> "Another summon near." (I know there's someone here.)
> 
> "I'm day [King] Mrsha hen's eyed!" (I'm taking Mrsha inside!)
> 
> "It good beet wrap." (It could be trap.)
> 
> "Eye thin kit safer end." (I think it's a friend.)
> 
> "Thin kaput weed own know, [Air In].” (Think, but we don't _know_ , Erin.)
> 
> “I heard something! Keep card!” (I heard something! Keep guard!)
> 
> “Air ink kiddo farrier please.” (Erin, get over here, please.)
> 
> “Hone own own own own, not could! Not could, not could, not could not could!” (Oh no no no no, not good! Not good, not good, not good not good!)
> 
> “Air ink it pack!” (Erin, get back!)
> 
> “Kid him up ocean!” (Get him a potion!)
> 
> “[Air In]!” (Erin!)
> 
> “Stop moving! We are you!” (Stop moving! We hear you!)
> 
> “[Air In], Lism.” (Erin, listen.)
> 
> “Able leafy ease sill.” (I believe he is ill.)
> 
> “I think you forgot bicker problems, buddy.” (I think you've got bigger problems, buddy.)
> 
> “Bird, we needle in net. Ankle in water.” (Bird, we need Lyonette. And clean water.)
> 
> “Yes. [Air In]. (Yes, Erin.)”
> 
> “Ease could've eve her.” (He's got a fever.)
> 
> “Nope ocean. No my chick!” (No potion. No magic!)
> 
> “East hilarious,” (He's delirious,)
> 
> “Chin heave akin help us. We neater.” (Geneva can help us. We need her.)


	2. Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind the tags.

When Niers wakes again, he wakes as a frog. He creeps through the rushes, fiercely ignoring the promised safety of the pond adjacent. All water is dangerous in the High Passes. A great heron prowls in his direction, beak like a knife.

Water, or land? Niers spies the heron and _hops_ in the other direction, but to no avail. Already waiting for him, the heron strikes, dagger plunging into his heart.

This is the bird attack he knows will kill him, finally, but he merely sleeps.

* * *

The first Adventurer, the red-haired woman, stars in Niers' first dream, but she isn't alone. Urgent voices and concerned whispers overlap in the background, furniture scrapes on the floor, and someone, somewhere, is yelling.

"My name is Lyon," says the Adventurer, peeling away an apron pocket from around him with graceful dexterity. He and the apron lie on a table in a smallish room, and she props him up against the folds of cloth. He attempts to contribute to the effort, if only to preserve some measure of dignity, but he can barely keep from rolling over and closing his eyes.

She dips a spoon into a teacup and then holds it near his face, but he doesn't dare.

"You need to drink." As if her intention wasn’t obvious. "It's just water," she explains, because she's an idiot.

It looks like water. It’s odorless, too. So, extra points to them.

"Anything else, and you can spit it out. Let us help you," she urges.

Solid reasoning, but she's clearly underestimating how he craves any liquid at all, not reckoning he might be unable to spit out anything no matter how hard he tries. Not even regular spit, at the moment, because he has none. Nevermind willpower.

Only because he's desperate for a distraction, anything to draw his mind away, Niers feels an unfamiliar aura swirling, as faint as can be.

_Steady,_ he thinks to himself, but there's nothing for him to fight, no command, no pressure and no coercion. He's just being overly defensive, he realizes.

"You'll die anyway, if you don't drink." She moves the liquid to touch his mouth and he sips, emptying the spoon. It doesn’t taste laced. But then, it wouldn’t, would it? She's quiet as she dips her spoon in the teacup again.

His lips move but no words leave his throat.

_There are worse things,_ he wants to say. _Worse things._

He has no tears because he's too dry, too dry.

So, again, he sleeps.

* * *

The next time Niers wakes, he wakes in a prison with no sound. Outside of it, he can see Erin Solstice playing chess at a table in her inn and laughing, enjoying a light snack amidst a crowd of onlookers.

Inside, Niers throws himself into the smooth curve of the hourglass, punches at the wall, punches until his fists are bloodied. He screams at the ceiling, noiseless, where red smoke pours into his chamber instead of sand. He rages, incomprehensible, as Erin stretches and smiles, reaching out to accept a cool beverage.

Erin, who's dripping head to toe with white paint, sits across the chessboard from Peclir Im. Smiling, she lays a tender hand on his gloved one.

Niers lies down, gasping, breathing in the mist, and closes his eyes.

* * *

In his dreams, he's being drowned by a Hobgoblin and a Gnoll. Niers leans forward to take off his boots and lands face-first in the water. The Hobgoblin holds him up while he coughs limply and then helps him finish removing his gear. The lukewarm bath muddies with the dirt and blood sluicing from Niers’ hair. The Gnoll stands to the side, sniffing his clothing. She says something that Niers misses, because the Hobgoblin nods at her grimly. 

"I know. _You_ told me about Brunkr, too."

Niers tries to concentrate and make intelligent conversation, but as soon as his eyes close, the Hob nudges him. The Gnoll and the bath are gone, and the Hob is holding a spoon of blue liquid to his lips.

"Drink," he orders.

Niers does, but it's sweeter than any potion he's had, and it heals nothing. The Hob gives him more. He still hurts everywhere. Maybe it's a sleeping potion? Poison?

He begins to shiver again.

* * *

Niers wakes trapped in a lantern. The fire pops and sparks, casting his features in a vicious red light, and his face burns with the inescapable heat.

On the other side of the glass, Niers can see Liscor, and more importantly he can’t miss the great icy snakes attacking the city. Erin grabs his lantern, and with a running start she launches him toward the nearest serpent. His confinement shatters in a burst of flame. 

The blaze attracts a swarm of face-eater moths, and Niers runs through a door to Pallass and shouts at the first person he sees, but they face the other direction at his words. He finds a crowd of people, and before he can beg for help, they twist to look at something else. He shouts for the Watch, for reinforcements, for an army, but everyone he sees turns away. 

He runs back through the door, thinking to help on his own, and tries to yell, tries to roar upon arrival. The fire consumes everything, there’s nothing left, and he can’t breathe for the smoke.

His vision goes dark.

* * *

Erin is drowning him, tears running down her face. Niers screams for the nightmare to end.

"What have I done? What do you want from me?" He bares his teeth and mutters through a gritted jaw. No one answers, but he knows. _I made you a target,_ is his answer. _I didn't even tell you._

With one hand Erin is supporting his head in a cool bath, little finger hooked under his arm, and with the other hand she's executing torture. The bathwater tastes vaguely salty, and the smallclothes he's wearing look new except now stained a shade of pink, blush like the water. She turns his head with her fingers and, using a soft-bristled brush, rubs delicate circles around the gashes in his side and the cuts on his back. He leans into her embrace and groans into the flesh of her palm.

"You fools, let me go! I’m the [Strategist] of my Company! There will be war if you don’t! Innocent people will die! It means your deaths, too, you imbeciles!"

When she stops, he leans to look, momentarily euphoric with the calm water cooling his wounds. Erin’s dropped the brush and is covering both her eyes with one hand, and she shudders with fast, quiet hiccups.

Lyon holds a speaking stone in one hand. She leans on the table beside Erin and, rocking the Gnoll gently, hisses muffled sounds of soothing comfort into the child's fur. To the side, the Hobgoblin removes a hand from Erin's hunched-in shoulders. He pushes a tiny cup of water closer to the shallow bathtub, then offers a small strip of cloth to Niers, wordless.

A voice comes from the speaking stone that Niers doesn't recognize.

_"Erin. I know this is hard."_

The Gnoll, face buried in Lyon’s neck, is wearing a giant bee on her head. Niers wants to plunge his head into the cold bath, to wake and see the real Erin again, but he tosses back the cup of water then takes the cloth from the Hob and lies down. This dream begins on battlefields, too, and he’s seen how it ends.

"It's okay," he says, resigned. "I know what to do." 

He twists the cloth, bites it, and shuts his eyes.

Erin wipes his face with a dripping towel and whispers, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

* * *

When he wakes, Niers is ringed by distant armies and carrying a white flag to the middle of the Floodplains. He shouldn’t be visible, but he knows that he is because he can see the others watching him, clear as day.

Some of his students stand with Liscor’s defenders on the Drake city’s walls: Wil, Venaz, Yerranola, Feshi, and others. 

Closing in on the walls are more students still: Marian, Kissilt, Umina, Cameral and more, along with Felk, Perorn, and Foliana. All wear identical black armor. Even the grizzled old Dullahan is there, rust-red armor exchanged for pitch. Even Three-Color Stalker wears it, invisible regardless.

_No._ His heart lurches, and he screams as loud as he can.

_"Peace! I want a truce!_ Parley! _Parley! Cease-fire!"_

Dozens of trebuchets roll into view, and Niers picks out Peclir Im next to them as well as Selentierre, Zecila, Juste, and all the rest in ranks behind.

In a panic, Niers runs and hollers again, _"Don’t fight! We’re not enemies! Just listen!"_

He searches the Floodplains for a way out, for anything he’s missed. Also, because his eyes are restless, he spots another army descending from the hills of the High Passes. Identical soldiers fill its ranks: row upon row of a Hobgoblin with a sword near the front, row upon row of an Antinium [Hunter] behind. A number of elegant-looking [Aeromancers] supporting them, each a woman with long red hair. If no one else has spotted them yet, well, it’s only a matter of time, because they’re charging.

" _Would you just—stop?_ Please?" he screams, despondent.

All of this new army ride massive red wolves. All except their leader, a human marked plainly by the brilliant white fur of her wolf and the enormous butterfly in her hair. She charges, bannerless, serene and unprotected.

His fellow teachers and their troops outflank the inn’s units in a clash of blood and steel. At the same time that Niers catches the sound of a hundred trebuchets’ counterweights dropping, the walls of Liscor activate and fire. The entire Floodplains illuminates at once, and the land, water, flora and fauna are destroyed. For a moment, Niers knows oblivion.

* * *

In his next dream, Erin visits Niers alone, and his heart seizes to imagine her safe. She's sitting beside his bed, wherever that is, and after dribbling liquid from a jar onto his injuries, she covers each with a light dressing. For a moment Niers thinks that she isn’t as much taller than he is, not as much as he first thought. He wants to ponder this, but it can wait. She's noticed that he's stirring.

He drinks from the cup that she gives him, a salty broth that goes down his throat like droplets of soothing mercy.

"Can you help me?" he whispers.

"We’re trying, yeah," she responds, softer even than his question. He refuses to let himself rouse to wakefulness quite yet. Her face is pinched and eyes rimmed in red.

"Can I help you?"

"I almost killed you," she answers. Her face crumples. "Do you remember?"

"Can I trust you?" His eyes seek hers, intent. "If we worked together—" He reaches out to touch her, to brush the hair out of her eyes, except she's impossibly far away, like a cheap mage's illusion. Her features etch with worry. "Don’t leave," he pleads.

Nonetheless, he can't keep his eyes open, and she disappears. Like a dream.

* * *

Niers awakens in the High Passes. He hums a buoyant tune. It’s been days up here. Weeks? 

Rain dribbles on his face, soaking his clothes through his armor, and he has a clear view of the Floodplains. Of course, as soon as he rises to look, a breeze gusts from behind, nearly blowing him from the small ledge, and the timely whistling carries a sound he doesn’t expect: voices. He falters back to the cliff face.

A dangling rope flutters against him, a twine of light brown strands mixed with a hint of orange. He grabs it and at his sharp tug, a length about half his height breaks away, useless. 

Angling his face into the drizzle, he yells upwards,

"Listen to me! Get me to Liscor!"

A figure above waves a gloved hand, features obscured by the rain and gloom, and Niers can’t make out their words. He tugs the rope once, then again, and it stays firm.

This time, he climbs a few arm lengths before the cord frays and snaps. Before it can fly away, he snatches the suspended remainder and holds tight. He yells again,

_"Please!"_

A squall sets the rope flailing, and he’s swinging over the vast drop like a kite, like a pendulum, like a baited hook. The storm, milder in the heights, rampages below, seething with thunder and carpeting the valley with lightning. Each flash chases away the darkness just enough that he can see a tiny inn outside of Liscor’s walls, the distance a mockery of his careful devices, his shrewd subtlety, and the dizzying extent of his plans.

A few more spirals above the abyss, and Niers slams into the sheer rock with a sickening crash. He sways in the wind and strikes against stone, and he looks up just in time to see the rope go completely slack, the top ending in a clean cut.

He blacks out before he can brace for the fall.

* * *

Somehow, Niers contrives the most ridiculous fantasy in his sleep. 

"Hey! Hey, wake up!" Erin is restraining him, and he’s lying beside his bed rather than on it, tangled in a mass of sweaty sheets.

"Ha!" He gives a wry snort and looks up at her. "If only." Truly, truly hilarious.

"I think you were having a nightmare. Here, drink."

"There’s no ‘think’ about this," he muses. The cup she hands him holds the blue liquid again, and he grimaces before he gulps it down. He’s parched, but it’s just as sweet as before, so now he's even more thirsty though his throat aches less. At least this dream’s not trying to kill him. Yet. He rises and looks around as best he can in the darkness. "Where am I?" 

He means the question for himself, not the chimera, but she answers.

"This is my inn."

"Huh." He walks, dazed, to the small door on the wall against the table. _Fraer-ways?_

The door opens into a mass of brown fur and the sleepy eyes of a Fortress Beaver colony.

"Selphid’s tits!" Niers gasps, falling back. _Not_ Fraer-ways, then.

"Uh, _ahem_! Language, please? There are children around." Niers picks himself up and looks around, again. "I mean, everyone else is sleeping. But you never know!" She waves at the wall, and the door disappears. Niers leans over, catching his breath. "The beavers are sleeping, too. So don’t go _there_. Duh." Another door opens next to the blank space where the first had been. A simple fancy.

Niers waltzes through the door without a second glance, and he’s back in Baleros. The air is thick with moisture, but the heat isn’t oppressive like it can be in the day. The grass, up to his waist, rustles in the gentle wind. He walks past trees and flowers from his childhood, and he stops to catch his breath, again, at the slope of a foggy hill.

Erin is here, too, and she approaches, eyebrows creased.

"Are you okay to be up?" She sits in the grass beside him. "You haven’t been sleeping much. It _is_ what we do at night. Usually."

They’re both silent for a moment.

"Uhh, I mean…" she cuts off in a rush. "Sometimes there are... situations. Or monsters? At night." He disregards her rambling to examine the stone figures on the hilltop, but he doesn’t go closer. "Not that you need to worry about monsters at night." He shifts his gaze to her. "Or monsters _ever_! Not here."

What could it mean?

She hands him the cup she’s been carrying.

"Just water." She produces a vial from somewhere. "Or I can add sleeping tonic?"

If only it were that easy.

He takes the cup as-is and dashes it back, cool liquid sliding down his throat.

"I need to _wake up_." He shakes his head bitterly and sits next to her. "Not sleep more." He presses his hand to a bandage on his abdomen.

"Well, yeah, if you want," she says, "but I still say you should rest. [Doctor’s] orders, after all."

He removes his hand, warm and wet. He can only stare at it, trying to understand. His palm is black in the moonlight and chills in the breeze.

"Oh my- dead gods!" Erin startles back. "You’re bleeding!"

There. There is the thought that he just couldn’t grasp. _She really is brilliant,_ he thinks.

"It’s okay," he whispers, "I trust you."

It would be wonderful to nap here, next to her, and he nods forward before jerking up. Erin catches him as he falls backward. She’s saying something, but he’s already sleeping.

* * *

Back in Elvallian, Niers wakes at his desk. Dream-Erin is gone. Illusion-Erin is nowhere to be seen, and he's not bleeding. Sunlight sparkles through the open window when he receives the report, and the grounds are quiet outside. The halls are quiet; his room is silent. Quiet like… like something.

Eventually, reluctantly, Niers leaves the tiny parchment, and he walks in a daze to the blank space on the wall next to where the first door had been. He offers a truce to his grief and exhaustion whereupon numbness overtakes him. A small door appears by his table, a door only a Fraerling could use. 

The door opens into a mass of light brown hair. Niers waltzes through without a second glance, and there on a table in a smallish room, an Erin-shaped corpse lies on its side, a knife in its back.

The Hobgoblin is there, too, next to the Antinium, and he says with Erin’s voice, "I’m really sorry."

In his mind Niers fills in, _for your loss._ Nevertheless, he says nothing.

_I'm fine,_ he tells himself, _this is fine._

Because he's always known, hasn't he? Known something would go wrong. Be wrong.

The Gnoll sits at the table, and she looks to Niers and says, also in Erin's voice, "I'm not sure what happened."

Lyon stands next to the Gnoll, looking troubled. "Here. Don't worry," she says to him.

The Antinium continues. With the same voice as Lyon’s, he says, "It's not your fault."

"Can I help?" the Gnoll chimes in, again with the voice of the [Innkeeper].

Niers doesn't respond. Maybe the question isn't meant for him, because it's Lyon who answers.

"Of course."

The Fraerling looks back at the door he entered, warm air and sunshine pouring after.

Niers doesn't think Erin would have visited Baleros in life, not without good reason and above all not with her inn so far away, but maybe she would have liked it. Under other circumstances, he supposes, she'd have made a remarkable teacher.

He waves at the wall, and the door disappears.

Lyon gestures at the regular door, and the others exit ahead of her, leaving him alone to pay his respects. She closes and locks it behind her.

Niers looks back at the corpse. A mess of light brown covers half its face. A knife in its back.

"It is true," he says.

Unfeeling, he steps forward and bends to sweep the hair off its forehead. Its eyes fly open to give him a flat stare, hazel rimmed in orange. Cheeks flushed with orange. The orange locks that he’s touching, mixed with the light brown, curl around his fingers and slither up his arm. He tries futilely to yank his hand back, and he thinks about screaming, but it’s so quiet, and he knows there’s no one to hear.

"I gotcha," she reassures him.

The orange, semi-liquid thing squeezes his shoulder and oozes around his neck. He braces with one boot against her nose and pulls harder, but the Selphid holds fast. All the same, he can’t find it in himself to care.

"Shh, it’s okay," she trills.

After all, he can still breathe, though it would be the responsible thing to yell, right about now. He opens his mouth to shout, and the Selphid slides down his throat.

"You’ll be okay."

Her lips aren’t moving; the voice is inside his head, clearly intelligible. Warmth surrounds him, pulses along his spine and flows to his extremities, and his ability to move melts away. Awareness falls away.

* * *

In his final dream, Niers rises from clean, dry linens to walk among his chess set. _The_ chess set, his favorite, and that’s how he knows it’s a dream. 

This one is a familiar reverie - a dream of peace and neutrality and comfort. One of complacency, and that should have been his warning.

The pieces have grown huge, distorted, like a set made for tallfolk. He wanders through a ghostly statuary arranged in tribute to the game of [Strategists], a forest of monuments to his grandest of frauds, a cemetery of all he’d ever wanted. 

There aren't enough graves for his Company, for his friends who fought and killed each other. He lets out a sigh and squeezes his eyes shut, wishing away _that_ particular sound.

Someone nearby is breathing, but he doesn’t look behind for the source. Someone or some _thing_. He's not ready to face it.

_No more, please,_ he thinks to himself.

Niers examines the bandages around his torso in the dim light and traces them with his fingertips. Clean. Neat. Flawlessly applied. He feels a tightness to his skin underneath where he knows the worst of his injuries would be, and that tells him to move gingerly, as if the aching weren't enough. That feels real, too.

He takes careful steps past the ghostly chessboard and finds another, this one mundane. The pieces show the endgame of what looks to have been a long and competitive match, and he wishes he could have seen it, analyzed it. 

He can remember analyzing the siege of Liscor with his students, and he tries to remember how many died on or outside its walls. Venaz? Umina?

_Incorrect!_ He hears himself shout. He needs to think harder. _Focus._

He remembers analyzing the siege of Liscor with his students. Had Umina's eyes lingered too long on the spot next to Liscor on the map? 

Niers remembers an apron pocket on a table and a woman with long red hair. He remembers Peclir playing chess with Erin and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. A table at an inn. It's another memory he wishes he could banish.

He leans forward, hands on his knees, and takes a deep breath. Looking back the way he came, Niers can see the outline of his little bed and its hasty, improvised construction. Beside it rests what he'd thought was a bathtub, but at a distance it's obviously a baking dish, maybe a loaf pan. Beyond it, another game board. A room at an inn.

An elegant-looking woman with red hair. A Gnoll with white fur in her arms.

Niers' breaths quicken, and without thinking he straightens, aiming to dash back toward the bed, but the movement sends his vision spinning and pinches at the tight skin on his side. He stumbles and catches himself on a King, not the magical one, and he uses it to balance, breathing deeply.

The Antinium with a bow. A bedroom at an inn.

Gasping, walking slower, Niers makes his way to the bed and gazes at the Go board next to it. A woman with a terribly familiar face. He sits and strains his neck to read it.

`we hv plan`

  
`\(^_^)/`  


Dead gods.

It's morning twilight, barely, probably closer to dawn. Someone takes slow breaths behind him. He turns away from the window to see, and there. There she is, unmistakable.

Erin Solstice lies on a bed overtop the covers, fully clothed. One of her arms hooks under her neck, chin angling up. Mouth open somewhat and drooling slightly, hair mussed from sleep, her breaths are even and safe, and she is heartbreakingly lovely. His hands come up to cage his face in consummate disbelief.

Dead, _dead_ gods.

Not just _a_ room. His bed and his bath. The magical boards. Hers. _Her_ room. He blushes furiously, and suddenly there’s not enough air, he can’t exhale, only gasp and draw breath, needing more, more, more air.

_Air. Air in._

Staggering back to the board, Niers shuffles through the stones, kicking the message out of existence and not giving a second thought to the resulting clatter. How many days had it been left for anyone to see? Never mind. They’d plainly been busy. He should make a note for Foliana. Perorn? Whomever.

First, he should make sure no messages are displayed on the chess set, too. Most of the pieces are upright, so he doesn't think so, but on the trip there, he skirts wide around the bed and glances at the floor. It looms below, barely visible, and it’s then that his strength fails him. All the breath he’d been holding leaves at once, and he wobbles, falling. Not off the table, thankfully, just to its surface, but that doesn’t matter because she’s there.

She’s cradling him two-handed, but he holds on to the cuffs of her shirt anyway as she lifts him. Her hands are not shaking, which is more than he can say for himself, and warm. She lifts his arms as she examines his bandages. Runs the pad of one thumb over the side of his neck, his cheek, and across his forehead. Blood hammers in his ears, and she searches him with narrowed eyes.

“Take it easy, will ya?”

"Did I wake you?" he asks. He should apologize. Stupid question. He’d seen her sleeping.

"Sure. But, it’s not a problem," she replies, sitting next to the table. "Situations at night, remember? Besides, it’s almost day." One eyebrow stretches up, skeptical, to say the least. "Are _you_ awake?"

"I-" He looks around the room a second time, now from a higher angle and with a little more light, and considers the question he thought he’d already decided for himself. "I think so?" It’s his turn to inspect her doubtfully. "Do you… agree?"

"Yup! But I mean, _awake_ awake. Because we'll have to put up a railing if you start sleepwalking, too."

"Oh. Right." It’s a rather practical question, when you think about it. "I’m tired, but I think so."

"Good, good. Are you bleeding anywhere?” He shakes his head at her. “How many fingers am I holding up?"

Niers’ eyebrows rise, and he looks at her palms below him then squints at her. She was still holding him with both hands.

Erin just nods, a grin playing at the corner of her mouth, "Trick question, glad you noticed." Her grin fades. “So, um…” She looks to the side, avoiding his eyes, and clears her throat. Growing serious, she swallows, takes a slow breath, and asks, "Who _are_ you?"

"A fan," he confesses, softly, voice limned with wonder.

"I know," she whispers back. "When you opened the Garden, I knew."

"I don’t know what that means," Niers whispers. _Ha!_ How long since he’d honestly been able to say that?

"Plus, there’s your friend there." She nods at the magical Go board. There’s a flicker in her eye, but she presses her lips in a straight line. "How about we start with a name?" she offers, reasonably. "Hi. I’m Erin."

"Erin." Niers listens to the sound of her name. His breath is shallow and quick. For the first time in days, a smile touches his mouth, his voice and his eyes. "My name is Niers."


End file.
